1. Or – third possibility — many people have recently raised their expectation of the future value of the Bitcoin economy. If you're familiar with stock trading, this is analogous to having a high P/E ratio.

There is a lot of uncertainty here. Intelligent, rational people disagree wildly on the future of Bitcoin. There are all kinds of risks: legal, technical, and competitive.

If the exchange rate crashes, and takes a long time to recover, you'll feel justified in calling all buyers "speculators feeding the hype machine", when in actuality many of them were simply wrong, or early.

2. False dichotomy. Some people are speculating. Others are using it to exchange value. Inventions don't need teleologies.

Your concern, if I'm understanding you, is that speculators are harming Bitcoin's potential as an alternative to the current economy. I wouldn't worry about that. The exchange rate is either going to $0 or $1000+, and the behavior of the community short-term isn't going to affect that.

Obviously, I'm long Bitcoin. See this blog post from 2011: http://andrewbadr.com/log/10/bitcoins-and-why-im-buying/